SELF-INTEREST WINS IN FACE OF COMMON ENEMY

THE CORONAVIRUS brings to mind two things: to remain calm and not run to the nearest exit if there’s a crisis, and how divided the human race is, even as we commiserate with affected families.

The coronaviruses like COVID19, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warns us, are “zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people”. Symptoms of COVID-19 include“fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties”.

Somehow, the biggest problem, now that Egypt and Nigeria have cases, is what WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been warning us about: fake news and misinformation.

“This is a time for facts, not fear. This is a time for rationality, not rumours. This is a time for solidarity, not stigma,” he said.

The problem when people are dying is the default human instinct for panic and self-preservation.

It is scary that social media as powerful as Facebook, on which anyone can reach the world across oceans, political borders and time zones, became the channel for spreading fear and stereotypes. China became the equivalent of death.

Powerful countries of the world called for cancellation of flights and other forms of travel to and from China, leaving people marooned far from home.

It might be advisable to heed the words of the WHO chief: “We have a choice. Can we come together to face a common and dangerous enemy? Or will we allow fear, suspicion and irrationality to distract and divide us?”

If we accept that globalisation is about the world breaking borders and becoming one community – united by our humanity with the help of communication technology, why would a crisis divide us?

Africa, which depends on trade with China, was caught in the crossfire yet again. Its largest and most profitable airline, Ethiopian Airlines, received international flak for not cancelling flights between Addis Ababa and China. If we comply with WHO protocols on safety and precautions, the airline asked, why should we cancel our biggest source of traffic?

Indeed, why should it? America, the UK and other suppliers of weapons never stopped selling arms to countries at war with one another. True, on the surface there will be talk of an arms embargo, but many books have been written, including

by

Hennie Van Vuuren, to demonstrate that death of people has never stopped the powerful nations from prioritising profit.

The divisions among humans are motivated by the greed and self-interest of the powerful. Africa is in the vortex of global economic activity because of the low base of which most of its countries are building from.

Countries such as Ethiopia are only now opening themselves to the rest of the world; creating Africa’s largest airport in the past 24 months, replacing Dubai as the gateway to subsaharan Africa and leading the way on how to foster intra-africa trade.

Smaller or emerging markets are always going to find themselves stuck between two warring elephants – with suffering staring at them.

In the words of the WHO chief, powerful nations like the US have to prove their mettle by unifying what he called “our fractured and divided world”.

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